


Diffused Light

by 28ghosts



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Soul Stone (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-11 13:11:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17447624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/28ghosts/pseuds/28ghosts
Summary: While trapped in the Soul Stone, Stephen Strange receives a visitor.





	Diffused Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [days4daisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/days4daisy/gifts).



> For days4daisy, for Chocolate Box round 4, inspired by one of Daisy's incredible Mordo/Strange prompts. I hope this does your prompt justice!

It’s quiet inside the Soul Stone.

Strange finds himself reconstituted there from the dust he had disappeared in, feeling returning slowly through his body. At least nothing hurts. No aches from the battle with Ebony Maw or Thanos, no dull headache from viewing fourteen million futures, and when he lifts his hands to look at them, they shake, but they do not ache.

This is Thanos’s warped vision of mercy, then: half the galaxy in limbo forever, but a limbo where at least there’s no pain.

Strange stares into the distance for a long time. There’s nothing but dim orange light, extending in every direction. Sometimes he thinks he sees the dark blur of another person, but whenever he turns to look, it disappears.

He knows he ought feel more urgently about being trapped here, alone. There are others trapped with him. If only he could _focus_ , if only he could reach out, twist the magic of the Soul Stone the way he’d once so fluently channeled the power of the Time Stone…

Strange is tired, though, so tired, and it’s peaceful here.

Fate is in someone else’s hands now. Strange can rest.

-

Strange doesn’t know how much time has passed before he thinks to sit and cross his legs and sink into meditation.

It helps, somewhat.

In meditation, he remembers more often than not that he is trapped, and that outside of the Soul Stone… It’s hard to imagine what lies outside of the Soul Stone’s dimension. It’s easier by far to focus on what lies _within_.

When he meditates, Strange can tell he is alone, but he can feel also the presences of others, so many others. Billions of lives in their own private worlds, just as quiet and sedate as he is. There are spikes and spindles of effort, of motion, here and there: other beings trying, like Strange, to reach out.

The Soul Stone swallows up most of it. Not, though, all of it. It’s reassuring and horrifying both, remembering he’s not alone. Somewhere there’s the boy, Peter Parker. The others who fought alongside him on Titan. And alongside them, others Strange had known before his accident, before Kamar-Taj. It’s worse, sometimes, remembering. Strange can tune out most of it.

Until there comes a rush of magical energy that can only be an intrusion. It’s far away, but it draws closer with every reappearance.

And it is familiar.

-

The Soul Stone’s magic tenses and spasms, and then there is -- there is someone.

“Strange.” The voice is familiar, mocking. “I told you the bill would come due.”

“Mordo.” Strange’s voice is gravelly in his in throat, and he doesn’t know why. Has it been that long since he’s spoken to someone? Or is the toll from the fight still weighing on him? He can’t tell. Time passes strangely in the Soul Stone, the same way it would in a dream.

He opens his eyes to see Mordo crouched in front of him. Mordo looks more real than anything else in this dimension, his edge sharper, less blurred by the diffuse light that _is_ the only thing in this dimension other than Strange.

There’s a heretic’s seriousness to him as he offers a hand to help Strange up. Strange takes it. Mordo remembers to help Strange up by his forearm. For an uneasy moment they stand like that, face to face, Mordo’s hand at Strange’s arm.

“You came from...outside,” Strange says.

Mordo nods. He drops his hand, steps backwards, stare still fixed on Strange. “Indeed. It took a long time to find you.”

“Surely now you understand why I left, why I _had_ to leave.”

Strange wonders if Mordo’s power remains with him in the Soul Stone, and how dangerous it is to provoke the man. “I know about Pangborn.”

Mordo smiles with no warmth whatsoever. “I told you,” he says again. “We abused the Mystic Arts for too long, and this is our just reward.”

“Not yours. You’re still free.”

“It brings me no joy to be.” Mordo looks as if he means it. “The world is in chaos, Strange. You can’t even imagine what it’s like outside of this place.”

Magic is different in the Soul Stone. Rather than quick and electric, it’s slow and viscous, like syrup. Now that Mordo is here, carrying his magic from outside the Stone, Strange can finally sense it. Strange draws it into him. “It isn’t just our world in chaos,” he says. “Every world. Every -- every place where things live, everywhere in the galaxy. Just like…” Mordo stares at him as Strange lifts his hand into the air. He tries to snap. His fingers are too weak. “This isn’t punishment for practicing the Mystic Arts, Karl. I think you know that. This was the act of a madman--”

“Don’t start, Strange,” Mordo says.

“I’m right, and you know it.”

“No simple madman could harness the power of the infinity stones. There’s something larger at work here.” Mordo holds his hands out, gesturing towards the endless dim light of the Soul Stone’s private dimension for Strange. “Even you couldn’t wield the power of all the stones together! Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme, insufficient to the task -- don’t tell me Nature wasn’t on the side of whoever it was to…” Mordo’s expression twists, and he nearly grins. “...right the scales.”

“The scales haven’t been righted.”

“It’s a start.”

The magic of the Time Stone had been different than this: fractal and recursive, looping in on itself, delicate, self-referential. It had still been the magic of an Infinity Stone, which Mordo had never wielded. Perhaps Mordo is still the more skilled dimension-walker, but he doesn’t understand the power of the Infinity Stones, not the way Strange does.

“It isn’t,” Strange says. “This will all be undone in time.”

“Such arrogance, even now.” Mordo shakes his head as he draws up a spell. His magic is the familiar white-gold of the world outside the Soul Stone, and the magic of the Soul Stone shifts around him in recognition. “Enjoy your time here, Strange. It will only be forever.”

With two quick gestures, dull orange magic arrests Mordo where he stands. It curls around his wrists and ankles, the same color as the Stone. “I’m sorry, Karl,” Strange says. He twists his fingers, tugs at the magic, and the magic flares like a sunrise into bright, cutting yellow.

Strange releases the spell. Mordo’s power rushes through him from his fingertips. It’s the most real Strange has felt since being trapped.

All composure slips from Mordo’s face as he positions his hands in the air, meaning to cast some spell. “You can’t keep me here.”

Strange stares at the furious face of the man who saved him in the streets of Kamar-Taj. The man who helped him navigate the strangeness of studying the Mystic Arts, the man who helped Strange, for the first time, envision a life outside of sterile surgery rooms that could still be worth living. The man who Strange had, for a long time, loved.

“That’s right; I can’t keep you here. The Soul Stone can, though, so long as you don’t have access to your magic. It’s no use dimension-walking without it.” Strange keeps one hand in the air, holding a defensive sigil in front of him. The Cloak shivers around his shoulders, the most it’s moved since Thanos’s snap. “Your spellwork was clever. Pangborn’s magic -- all of your victims’ magic -- locked up until you release it. And if you die, it goes with you. It took Wong and I a very long time to recreate it.”

Weeks, in fact, of serious research. Strange refuses to consider the possibility that Wong is trapped in the Stone as well -- someone needs to guard the Sanctum, when the world is in chaos more than ever.

All the more reason why he _can’t_ let Mordo go to prey on Earth’s weaker sorcerers. Not while there’s no one to track him, no one to prevent him from attacking the Sanctums. If the Sanctums fall, other dimensions will scent blood and rush in; Thanos’s attack will have been just the beginning of the devastation.

Mordo stands still in the orange light for a long time. He tries different gestures, different invocations. From a distance, Strange watches him.

After some time -- hours, maybe, or minutes; in the Soul Stone, it’s hard to tell -- Mordo tips back his head, and he laughs.

“Good, Strange,” he says. “You’ve trapped me. Very good.”

Despite himself, watching Mordo at least appear to resign himself to his fate, Strange feels a familiar flicker of pride.

Mordo’s praise has never been easy to earn.


End file.
